Simply prevent the Force and Coercion

by Eric Dondero

Out of Europe comes a unique proposal to solve the growing cultural problem of Muslim women wearing full-length burqas in public. The predicament for libertarians has long been, how do you protect individual rights, but at the same time preserve a culture of tolerance? Forcing women to wear a covering from head-to-toe, and worse, even a full-facial covering over their eyes, is wholly oppressive and runs completely counter to the West's traditions of openess and women's rights.

Belgium is considering a Burqa Ban, and ironically it's a libertarian-leaning Party who is leading the charge.

Daniel Bacquelaine, a member of the Reformist Movement party, argued in the weeks before a government crisis in Belgium took everyone’s attention off the law he had proposed. “It is necessary that the law forbids the wearing of clothes that totally mask and enclose an individual. Wearing the burqa in public is not compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society.”

The Reformist Movement party is “liberal” in the European sense, meaning pro-business, laissez-faire, somewhat libertarian. But Bacquelaine’s position doesn’t belong to the left or right in Europe; in fact the burqa ban has united Belgian politics like no other issue. Majorities from the Green Party to the far right, from the Francophone south to the Flemish-speaking north, agree with Bacquelaine that people can and should be fined for covering their face.

Belgium Parliament Member sparks the Debate

Bacquelaine gets it almost right. In fact, it's distressing how close he's come to the solution. He expresses the problem in brillantly libertarian terms. But misses the libertarian solution by a hair.

Rather, the solution was provided by a caller to a BBC program which was discussing the Belgium Burqa Ban.

From the BBC Talk Show episode, "Are Muslims under the atttack?":

"If that’s the case, instead of making the law against a particular item of clothing, why not make the law against anyone compelling women to wear, or not wear, whatever it is they choose?"

Quite brillant, as the Brits would say.

Rather than banning personal clothing and appearance, why not ban the act of forcing another individual to wear a certain type of clothing, or dress in a certain manner in public.

Obviously, the target of the law would be Muslim immigrant men from the Middle East who force their wives to wear the burqa and the hijab.

But in practice it could apply to anyone, for example, a Skinhead boyfriend forcing his girlfriend to wear NeoFascist attire to a protest or rally.

Such a law could find acceptance from all points of the political spectrum.

Columnist Michael Scott Moore of Miller-McCune, Smart Journalism writes simply:

The logic is hard to refute; less enforceable laws have been passed in Western societies.

Photo Belgium Member of Parliament Daniel Bacquelaine.